Tag: iPhone

Reporting on the toughest rally in the world and making a documentary about it—is that possible when using only a phone and a few accessories? Yes, of course, it is. This is our story.

My colleague Ronald (right) and I (left) in the Peruvian dunes.

What did we do?

The Dakar Rally takes place in South America. This year’s edition started in Peru (with plenty of dunes), crossed Bolivia (at a very high altitude, 4000+ meters), and finished in Argentina (with very high temperatures). My colleague Ronald and I followed one competitor in particular: Ebert Dollevoet, who was competing in Dakar for the 10th time but had never reached the finish. We made a daily report (video diary, vlog, you name it) of his experiences for our website and social media. The footage that we shot for those reports has been compiled into a documentary. Unfortunately, Ebert Dollevoet had to withdraw from the rally after a couple of days (so even in this last attempt again, he didn’t reach the finish). Apart from Dollevoet, we also covered the performance of the other competitors from our region.

Why did we choose to shoot with our phones?

In this project, two of the primary advantages of shooting with a smartphone came together beautifully.

Trying to get the best shot.

Speed. When something happened in the rally, we wanted to report it immediately. Speed was very important to that end, because of the time difference and competition. When the competitors finished the day’s stage, it was late in the evening in the Netherlands already. So, the faster we published our content, the more chance we had for people actually watching it. Our main competitor was a national broadcaster, which has the rights to air all the footage from the rally itself. They had to transfer everything via satellite (and that was only possible in certain time slots). Just because we shot with our phones (and edited on our phones, and uploaded from our phones), we were faster than them at all times.

Getting close. For the reports and the documentary on Ebert Dollevoet, we wanted to get as close to his team as possible. In certain situations, we wanted to act as a fly-on-the-wall. The mechanics didn’t have any camera experience, so it was a huge advantage for us that we didn’t have to intimidate them with a large camera.

Workflow and gear

Ebert Dollevoet in action (photo: Daniel Curiel)

We used an iPhone 7 Plus (with a local sim card) as the main camera and an iPhone 6 (with a local sim) as a second camera. We also carried another iPhone 6 (with a Dutch sim card).

On most occasions, we worked together, so one of us acted as the cameraman, while the other functioned as the reporter. We used an iRig Mic HD2 as our main microphone (and when that became defective, we used an original iRig Mic HD). Also, we made use of iRig Mic Lav lavalier microphones and a Sennheiser EW100 wireless lavalier microphone.

We recorded everything in Filmic Pro and edited the daily reports in LumaFusion. We had created a couple of templates in LumaFusion before, so we could make use of some design elements without spending too much time on editing the videos. To transfer the footage to our broadcaster’s FTP server, we used FTPManager Pro and an FTP app that I’m developing myself (which will be available soon; beta testers are welcome!).

Thousands of people at the start in Lima.

We tried to backup the footage that we shot every day via a MacBook on two external hard disks. Regular backup was necessary to ensure that we had enough free space on our phones. We chose to use two hard disks, so that we wouldn’t have a problem if one of them would fail.

The only non-mojo part was editing the documentary. We did that on an old-school computer in our broadcaster’s office, in an old-school desktop video editor (Avid). This made sense, as our broadcaster has a few nice edit suites that run on Avid, and for a long-form edit such as this project, it’s nice to work on a couple of big screens instead of an iPhone/iPad. But, of course, this could have been done in LumaFusion as well, there’s no doubt about that.

Challenges

For the tenth time, Ebert Dollevoet didn’t reach the finish line.

Our biggest challenge was finding a reliable connection every day. Luckily, in most bivouacs, 4G coverage was available for some carriers. The first thing that we did after crossing a border was buying a local sim card with an activated 4G connection. Theoretically, this should be easy, but we faced quite a bit of trouble in every country (sim cards sold out, activation only possible with a local passport, etc.). After arriving in a bivouac, the first thing we did was checking the 4G connection. When that connection turned out to be rubbish, we had to use the Wi-Fi connection of a hotel or people living nearby. On some days, no cell coverage was available at all, so we had to drive out to a nearby city that had coverage.

Filming in very bright light (in the desert, in the middle of the day) is also a challenge. When you can see almost nothing on your phone’s screen, due to the sun’s glare, it’s hard to determine whether your interviewee is in focus or not.

Lessons learned

We made one big mistake. We brought a VJ camera with us as a backup camera, or for possible scenarios when we would require a ‘real’ camera for whatever reason. We didn’t take it out of its bag even once. It took up a lot of room and weight for nothing.

When filming in challenging circumstances like this, your gear will fail sometimes. We tried to make sure that we had a fallback option available for as many gear as possible. So, the day our handheld microphone stopped working (and our second handheld mic was in the hotel room), we could use a lavalier mic instead. It’s the same story when our LED light started malfunctioning. So, ensure that you have fallback options available for all your gear at all times!

Output

This is the documentary we made about Ebert Dollevoet’s 10th attempt to reach the finish line of the Dakar Rally:

You can find all the daily reports that we made about Ebert Dollevoet in this Storify.

Some other video’s that we made:

All members of this team are firemen.

The town of Boekel is very small (1000 inhabitants), but six of those people from Boekel are in the Dakar Rally.

This article was written before the announcement of the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X.

For a long time, when someone asked me What phone should I buy for mojo? I’d answer Buy the Plus version of the newest iPhone without thinking.

While that’s still my answer for now, I don’t know for how long that’s gonna be the case.

Android for sure has come a long way. And while the operating system undoubtedly still has some disadvantages comparing to iOS, it’s getting better with every new version.

But in this article, I want to focus on hardware and cameras. Of course, there are many many more new Android phones than new iPhones. So naturally, there will be more hardware innovation on that side. Manufacturers start to realize that outstanding camera performance for many people is the most important thing on a new phone. In the last months only, multiple Android phone manufacturers announced new phones with innovative camera specifications.

Recording (and streaming) with both the front and rear camera simultaneously? You’ll need the Nokia 8.

A superb DSLR quality camera and a holographic display? I’d bet on the RED Hydrogen with a separate camera module. That could really revolutionize the way we shoot with a smartphone because it’s the first smartphone that’s made especially for professional videographers. (Okay really, I know it will take at least another 6 months, there is no guarantee that it will be as good as they promise, it’s freakin’ expensive, so it’s kinda risky that I spent 1200 USD on it, but I’m sooooo curious!)

Of course, writing all this is not really fair when the announcement of the new iPhone(s) is just a month away. But apart from it’s augmented reality options, most rumors on the new iPhone are about wireless charging and the OLED screen. Maybe Apple will surprise us all. But if not, for the next year, we have to rely on other manufacturers to push the limits of mobile journalism.

One of the great things about mobile journalism is that everything is evolving so freakin’ fast.

A year ago you could choose between a couple of professional iPhone grips. Today there are so many I can’t count.

A year ago, there was no professional multitrack iPhone video editor available. Today there are two: LumaFusion and Kinemaster (also for Android) and they are great.

A year ago it was a hassle to distribute 360º video via your phone. Today you can do livestreaming in 360º in seconds.

A year ago it was very difficult to get wireless audio in combination with a gimbal. Today that’s a piece of cake, with new gimbals that don’t block the Lightning/USB port and a dedicated wireless microphone system for smartphones*.

A year ago zooming with your smartphone camera was a no go. Today Apple, Huwawei, LG and many other brands sell phones with two camera’s to create (some) optical zoom.

A year ago you needed a DSLR to make images like this. Today you get the bookeh effect with many new dual lens smartphones, like the iPhone 7 Plus.

Some reporters, broadcasters and publishers still doubt the possibilities of smartphone usage for news reports, Those discussions are interesting. Of course, in many situations using a broadcast camera still has advantages. Better image quality, better zooming, I totally get it. But I always try to ask the question: If this is what happened in the last year, what will mobile journalism look like in another twelve months?

*The Samon Go Mic Mobile wireless microphone system for smartphones will be available in a couple of weeks. So that’s not literally today. But you get the point…